divine and supernatural even into his most ex-
travagant buffooneries. My pen trembles, and 
tears of an ever-present emotion rise to my 
eyes, while I seek to describe to you this un-
forgettable evening. Fanciullo proved to me in 
a peremptory and irrefutable manner that the 
intoxication of art is apter than any other to 
veil the terrors of the abyss; that genius may 
play its part upon the edge of the tomb with a 
joy which prevents it from seeing the tomb, 
lost as it is in a Paradise which excludes all 
idea either of death or of destruction. 
The entire audience, right world-word and 
frivolous as it may have been, soon surren-
dered itself to the all-powerful domination of 
the artist. Nobody thought any more of death, 
of mourning, of execution. Each one aban-
doned himself without anxiety to the wave 
upon wave of pleasure which the sight of a liv-
ing masterpiece of art always gives. Outbursts 
of joy and admiration shook and shook again 
the roof of the building like the rolling of con-
tinuous thunder. The Prince himself, carried 
away, mingled his applause with that of his 
Court. 
Yet, for a far-seeing eye, his intoxication, 
his own, was not unmingled with other ele-
ments; did he feel himself abased, his despot’s 
power broken? Humiliated in his art, that of